---
title: Something had to be done, but they did not know what. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Something had to be done, but they did not know what. Who acts: Something, lives. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 32, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/32/22/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Crimson Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/) / [The Crimson Fairy Book, part 32](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/32/) / 22

# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 32, sentence 22

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Something had to be done, but they did not know what.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Something, lives · **What happens:** have, do, not know

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 32. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Something, lives), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg2435:32:22
# text = Something had to be done, but they did not know what.
1	Something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
12	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Something |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **do** | to-infinitive · passive | Something *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V» |
| 3 | **not** **know** | past · do-support | lives *= life* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer what=Stimulus |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/32/21/)
- next →: [sentence 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/32/23/)
- ↑ back to [The Crimson Fairy Book, part 32](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/32/)